A lot of book listings on Amazon are vanishing.
Cheap used books are becoming hard to find.
I think.
Is this my imagination?
I heard there was a bit of a shortage with used books with the pandemic. Library wait lists are longer, etc.
But no cite and might not be accurate.
I’ve seen a number of used books that were no longer available on Amazon (or at insane prices) that were instead listed at sites such as https://www.thriftbooks.com/ for more conventional prices. I suspect, but have no evidence, that going through amazon puts you in direct conflict with the ‘buy it now’ option on kindle books (which IMHO are overpriced) so it’s a better value to advertise on a dedicated site. Which I have no problem with, since amazon is well, amazon.
This is in addition to What_Exit’s comment on shortages at libraries and other locations.
(Amazon book vendor here) In recent years, Amazon has changed their pricing and fee structure in such a way that a penny book, which the site often carried, is not going to be profitable under any circumstances (i.e. charging for shipping).
My own minimum charge for my stock is $7, although that does include shipping.
It probably has to do with COVID and quarantine.
There have been both a decline in supply because of the lack of Friends of library sales, garage sales, closing of thrift shops–the sources of supply for lots of Amazon booksellers… and an increase in demand (because of the lack of alternative things to do) during Covid.
But a particular problem with Amazon is that it has been eliminating a lot of editions: a title shows a recent new reprint edition but doesn’t show earlier out-of print editions. In this situation you can find the cheap editions at places like:
I think https://www.bookfinder.com/ is a bit more expansive that vialibri. 100,000 booksellers vs. 150.
No, they are probably roughly comparable; while there are difference in the types of searches you can do. [Searchers tend to like Vialibri if they looking for collectible books.]
Each of the 150 Vialibri websites has from a few hundred to thousands of booksellers. For example I believe Abebooks has about 6,000 individual booksellers and Amazon has tens of thousands. So for Vialibri this is two websites (out of 150) while for Bookfinder this is tens of thousands of booksellers (out of 100,000). [Note there may be some individual booksellers who list directly on one or both of bookfinder and vialibri–but this is just duplication since they already list on Amazon and Abebooks, etc.]
Just do some searches to get some comparisons. The other popular mega-search site is
eBay is a reasonably good place to find used books, especially since their half.com media site closed and sellers migrated to eBay proper.
Right now, Amazon is in the midst of a computer glitch that has caused us third-party vendors to lose almost all of our sales. I sure hope this resolves soon; while I don’t totally depend on it to pay my bills, a lot of other people do.
Wait, Amazon sells books?
Such a country!
Actually books were the first product line Amazon sold.
That whooshing noise is books being gently wafted over your head.
Enhance, please, Mr Spork?
Okay, maybe this is clearer for you.
Because the search engine wasn’t working properly, people couldn’t find our items, and place orders for them.
Not what I was discussing. Please re-read the OP.
Fewer listings, not fewer sales.
And this has been going on for weeks.
For what it’s worth, I did a check today and a number of titles are showing more sub $1 US books with 3.99 shipping again on mass market books. So it is possible there were some problems as well as other market pressures that are being/have been resolved.
Whenever there is publicity about specific books or authors in the media, more people buy them. For example an author dies, a reviewer discusses an older book, a movie based on the book come out. Or this can extend to broader areas: for example there has been a lot of articles, video… on the Black experience in America in recent years–so people buy books.
OP: why don’t you list some specific titles you have found this problem with?
My perceptions accord with the OP. Used book prices have been converging with new book prices at Amazon for a while, predating the pandemic. I also agree with PastTense that finding older editions of the same tome is more of a challenge at Amazon.
I gave up using shopbots such as BookFinder and AllBookstores for many years. Starting today, I think I’ll use them more often.